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On Think Tanks was founded in mid 2010. It has evolved from a blog into a global platform dedicated to study and support policy research and policy research centres, or think tanks. The members of the On Think Tanks Team and its Advisory Board are spread out across 6 continents!

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Opinion

The woes of domestic philanthropy in developing countries

The Idaho Stateman recently announced that retired U.S. Republican Sen. Jim DeMint has founded a conservative think tank in South Carolina. DeMint spent 13 years in the US House of Representatives and the Senate; he is now investing $300,000 from his remaining campaign money to establish the new Palmetto Policy Forum. This think tank will be promoting conservative ideals in order to influence public policy.

While initiatives such as these where politicians or other influential individuals take an interest in financing research and its dissemination are quite common in the United States, the United Kingdom and other rich nations, the same does not occur, with the same frequency, in developing countries. Domestic philanthropy, even this ideologically driven kind, may not be considered a worthwhile investment, or in some cases, like in India, philanthropists might be more interested in putting their resources in foreign research institutions:

Indian corporates, on the other hand, have never been a major source of funding for research, even if they are increasingly funding education. Thus, Bharti’s Sunil Mittal, the only Indian mentioned in a Wikipedia list of world’s 100 top philanthropists, has liberally funded school and college education, including institutions like the Indian School of Business, but when it comes to supporting think tanks, he has so far preferred to help the Carnegie Endowment rather than any policy think tank in India. Same applies to most of India’s celebrated billionaires.

Could it be the prestige of having connections to an institution such as the Carnegie Endowment that incites these billionaires and philanthropists to donate their money? Perhaps. Certainly developing countries and international donors should place further emphasis in persuading local philanthropists that investing in local think tanks is certainly a worthwhile endeavour.

Between 2016 and 2018, OTT supported the Latin American network of think tanks, ILAIPP, to strengthen the sustainability capacity of the network and of its members.
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